Kinson Academy

Curriculum

The curriculum at Kinson Academy provides the perfect mix of knowledge, creativity and skills development to promote excellence and enjoyment of learning.

We believe that exciting, engaging lessons, adapted individually to each child’s needs are the best way to ensure every child succeeds.

Reading, Writing and Maths are taught daily in our school, ensuring that all children develop the key skills they will need. These skills are then used in other subjects, giving children opportunities to refine, practise and apply their knowledge. All teachers tailor their lessons carefully to ensure that every child can access the curriculum – whatever their ability – in order to succeed.

Our curriculum will enable each child to not only enjoy their education but also to make progress and achieve.

At Kinson Academy, every child is important and deserves success. We will support and help every child to become the best they can possibly be. We want each child to:

  • Have high expectations of what they can and will achieve
  • Achieve the very best they can
  • Make progress in their learning
  • Have a positive attitude towards their learning
  • Have a healthy lifestyle
  • Feel safe and secure
  • Be proud of their school and their uniform
  • Be polite, kind and helpful members of the community

But most of all to…

  • Enjoy school!

At Kinson Academy, we endeavour to achieve all of this, for all our children. 

Kinson Academy’s approach to the teaching of reading

Alongside our Guided Reading sessions in KS1, Kinson Academy use the synthetic phonics scheme Read Write Inc. It is a phonics-based approach to reading, which allows children to progress at a rate individual to them. By learning the smallest sounds, children can break down unknown words to read fluently, as well as, learning words that cannot be sounded out. The aim is to become a successful and independent reader, ensuring children have a love of books and an enjoyment of reading.

Kinson Academy Reading Schemes

Reading in Reception and Key Stage 1

Reading skills in the lower school are taught mostly through Ruth Miskin’s Read Write, Inc. phonics scheme. The children begin learning letter sounds in Reception and put them together to read simple words. They also learn some key words, which cannot be sounded out. They move on to reading very short stories, called ‘ditties’, followed by longer texts over the next 2 or 3 years, until they are fluent. They also answer questions about the texts that they have read.

In addition to Read, Write Inc. the children take part in other reading activities moving on to more formal comprehension lessons when they are fluent. They read a levelled book independently, or to an adult and learn to answer questions and respond to what they have read.

Children in Reception and KS1 may bring up to 3 books home per week.

  • Practice Book – linked to the sounds learnt in RWI, which is changed weekly
  • Grapple Book – a book that may contain some words the children haven’t yet encountered but will support their phonic reading skills. These can be changed as frequently as they are read, but re-reading books is also beneficial for building fluency.
  • Pleasure Book – every other week, each class has a chance to go to the library and pick a book for pleasure. These books are to enjoy and share at home and don’t need to be read independently.

Parents are required to spend 10 minutes, a minimum of 3 times a week, helping their children to read and answer questions about their book. These can then be recorded in their Reading Records so that we can see this has been happening at home.

Reading Key Stage 2

Each week, the children have 5x 45-minute comprehension lessons which focus on the different reading skills: Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explaining, Retrieving, Summarising (VIPERS). There is also daily opportunity to develop a love of reading by enjoying a class text that links with the topic.

Children in KS2 bring home two books each week.

  • Grapple Book – a book that may contain some words the children haven’t yet encountered but will support their reading fluency. These can be changed as frequently as they are read but rereading books is also beneficial for building fluency.
  • Pleasure Book – every other week, each class has a chance to go to the library and pick a book for pleasure. These books are to enjoy and share at home and don’t need to be read independently.

Parents are required to spend 10 minutes, a minimum of 3 times a week, helping their children to read and answer questions about their book. These can then be recorded in their diaries so that we can see this has been happening at home.